The main draw of Lulworth Cove other than knowing you’re getting fresh air and exercise is Durdle Door, the natural, limestone arch jutting out into the sea.

We ended up visiting a couple of museums while there. Photos from inside the museums were taken on the phone rather than with the camera. First up was a teddy bear museum.

We also visited a dinosaur museum in Dorchester. With the whole area of Dorset being somewhat famous for its found fossils it seemed the right thing to do, although there was some questionable science on display.

Photographing any dark attraction with flash restrictions always take me out of my comfort zone and into the world of high ISO photography but it’s doubly unnerving in an aquarium where things are moving, the light varies from second to second, and you’re trying to take pictures through glass that’s either distorted or filthy with fingerprints or both.

The sea turtles were very photogenic and moved slowly enough and in a light enough tank to get some reasonably sharp shots.

A semi-outdoors area housed some penguins and Inca terns. The ventilation wasn’t quite enough to take away the smell of fish that accompanies any gathering of penguins but you learn to live with it as they’re quite humorous to observe, occasionally pushing one another into the water or sliding into it on purpose but with zero grace.

My favourite area were the tanks holding moon jellies. I find them utterly mesmerising and stunningly beautiful to simply watch and photograph.

Lyme Regis is famous for its fossils that are often exposed in landslides along the coastline near it. The town was the birthplace of Mary Anning, a heavy influencer of scientific thinking in the fields of palaeontology and geology who, because she was a woman, was not eligible to join the Geological Society and often was not credited as well as she might have for her work. She was well-regarded by her male peers, though, and she made important discoveries such as the fossilised remains of an ichthyosaur, two nearly complete plesiosaurs, and the first set of pterosaur bones found outside Germany.

We would visit the museum at Lyme Regis, located on the site of Mary Anning’s birthplace, but first off we wanted to take a walk along the seafront. Despite the cold. Despite the high winds. Knowing us, it was probably because of those things. We had a choice to make from where we emerged at the shore after our walk through the town from the car park: west towards the beach and harbour wall; or east along the sea defences towards the Dorset cliffs. Both had merits but we opted for the latter on this occasion.

Our seafront walk initially took us past some older stone structures and even a part of a wall that appeared to be miniature fortifications with a small tower of some kind and for some odd purpose. The local football team play at Davey Fort Ground whose name might explain the history of the walls but I’m only guessing here. One thing that was evident, however, was just why there were so many landslides along this part of the coast as the water, churned up and turned over by the powerful wave surges, was as brown as the soil and sand it was eroding right before our eyes.

A sign on a wall we passed promoted the friendship between that local football team and one in Normandy. Lyme Regis is also notably twinned with St George’s, the capital of Bermuda, on account of the island’s founder being Sir George Somers, a renowned sixteenth century privateer and former MP of the Dorset town.

The east coast of Lyme Regis was a vista of cliffs around a curving bay with a modern sea wall protecting the town as best it could from the battering it was receiving – and clearly often receives – from the wind and sea funnelling into the spot along the shoreline. With the geology of the region accounting for its abundance of fossils and the geography of the region delivering up striking demonstrations of raw power from the elements it would be fair to say that Lyme Regis is a great destination for nature lovers. We wandered along the top of the sea defences for a while, marvelling at the pounding from offshore, and braving the wind until such time as fingers and faces started to edge towards the painful side of numb.

That brought the walk along the sea wall to an end as far as we were concerned so we turned around and headed back towards the main part of Lyme Regis. I noticed and approved of the big variety in house designs along the seafront and it was interesting to see some fossils – ammonites, mainly – embedded in some of the walls we passed. Any seaside resort in the UK worth its salt has colourful beach huts and Lyme Regis is no exception there either. We walked to within range of the harbour wall and breakwater jutting out to sea from the shore, but decided not to head onto it at this time (despite our love of piers and similar structures) as we wanted to pay a visit to the museum, fancied a bite to eat, and were in need of restrooms at this point (a biting wind and crashing waves can have that effect).

Tea and cake inside us (that’s what you do when you’re beside the seaside) and a little knowledge injected into our cranial cavities later we made our way back to the car in order to continue onwards to our hotel in Devon. But our visit to Lyme Regis doesn’t quite end here.

The thing about a journey long enough to warrant a stop on the way is that the same journey in reverse is likely long enough to warrant a stop on the return, and this is precisely what happened at the conclusion of our 2014 West Country holiday. We decided to head back to Lyme Regis just a few days later not because we’re getting senile and had forgotten we’d already visited, but because as we’d left the town we’d spotted an interesting-looking art gallery which was sadly closed. But we’d paid attention to its opening times, and realising that those coincided with our trek back towards Hampshire we hit the seaside town once more.

The weather was not quite so clear and bright on this occasion (an understatement) but that didn’t stop us from making immediately for the seafront of Lyme Regis once more. This time we took a walk westwards and made for The Cobb since we’d not ventured onto it just a few days earlier. This harbour wall is mentioned in documents dating from the early fourteenth century. Until the nineteenth century Lyme Regis was able to function as a fair-sized trading port thanks to this artificial harbour but the increasing size of ships soon relegated it to a smaller role. The Cobb is also mentioned in both Jane Austen’s Persuasion and John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman. The heavy cloud cover and low tide exposing muddy sand and beached boats lent this Dorset town a delightful gloom.

Coming back from The Cobb towards land I was taken by some of the patterns left in the sand by the receding water. One of the shots I took could almost be an orbital photo over Mars.

The next thing to catch my eye on the walk back into town was the sight of a group of (I assume) photography or art students on Lyme Regis beach trying to take some leaping photos against the sea and cloudy skies. The wind was not making this an easy job but it looked like they were enjoying themselves and it made for interesting viewing from our vantage point back from the water.

All that remained was to head into town and to the art gallery. A few more pictures were taken because if it’s not clear by now, taking photos is what I do.

The art gallery we’d spotted on our previous trip was BizleyArt. We popped in and saw the artist painting while we were there, and after a bit of dithering and an embarrassing moment when I turned my back on the artist to point out what we were interested in, forgetting he was deaf and now unable to hear anything I was saying nor read my lips, we picked up something with which to decorate the home. Richard Bizley is heavily influenced by science and nature in his artwork and Lyme Regis’s connections with prehistory feature often in his works, but it was a piece called Enceladus Expedition that caught our eye as it combined sci-fi with a cartoon style that appealed to that part of us that likes street art and pop art.

Lyme Regis has some nice beachfront and lovely views and there’s plenty to potentially discover if you’ve got an interest in geology or prehistory. We obviously saw enough on our first visit to visit again, so as a day trip it gets our thumbs up but it’s not the sort of place we’d use as a base for an extended stay as it doesn’t quite have that liveliness for the evening we look for.

We stayed at the Chocolate Boutique Hotel just to fancy this trip up a bit (we’ve stayed at the nearby Connaught Hotel on other occasions and been perfectly happy with it but sometimes you like to splash out). As you can guess from the name there was something of a chocolate theme going on and if you’re a fan of chocolate then it’s definitely worth considering should you find yourself in need of a Bournemouth break. The hotel was absolutely fine but I’d say that we’re the sort of couple who tend to prefer bigger establishments with more facilities than a smaller, boutique hotel typically provides in general.

Bournemouth’s most famous and popular attraction is its long, sandy beach and, as is tradition when we visit the Dorset town, we started off with a walk along part of its length starting on the clay cliffs that overlook the seafront.

Our direction of travel was towards the distant sight of Bournemouth Pier. The clay cliffs of Bournemouth are split by chines and the pier is mostly opposite one. West of the pier the cliffs are known as the West Cliffs and east of the pier, well, you can probably guess the name. We were on the West Cliffs at this time and made our way down to the promenade via the West Cliff Zig Zag path. The wind was no less fierce than it had been higher up and the seafront walk was partially covered in a layer of sand that was being swept along by gusts. You can see this in the photo of the beach huts below and in the video further down this post.

The next point of interest back from the beach was the 1908-built West Cliff Lift. If you’re looking at the pictures and thinking “That’s not a lift; that’s a funicular railway” then you’re right, it is. It’s certainly not the largest of its type we’ve seen when we’ve travelled around the world but it looks like it would be a fun and less-tiring way to reach the clifftop if you were in need of transportation in that direction. So far, we never have.

Before we reached the pier we passed the exterior of Happyland Amusements which is the sort of name for the sort of place at the sort of time we tend to visit that I love as it conjures up some kind of Orwellian or horror location best avoided. Just to be clear, though, we do like amusement arcades if we’re visiting seaside resorts. All part of the classic, cheesy experience.

Onto and along the pier then, and regular visitors to this site will possibly already know that we do like a pier (see: Piers). Bournemouth pier’s current form dates more-or-less back to the 1880s – one of many designed by Eugenius Birch – with some extensions and modernisations since then plus significant deconstruction during World War 2 (to prevent its use by German forces) then reconstruction afterwards.

This short video (temporarily removed) covers some of the walk along Bournemouth seafront and onto the pier where you should get a good feel for the wind conditions hitting that part of the coastline during our visit. At the end of the pier I struggled to hold my phone up to take footage at all. The surfers enjoyed what Mother Nature was hurling their way, though.

In 2014 a zip line was built on the pier. I’ve never felt the urge to have a go on a zip line and don’t imagine that’s a feeling that’s likely to change in the foreseeable future but I did like the design of the tower to ascend to the platform for this attraction. I suspect it’s the similarity to a wine bottle corkscrew that appeals.

It started to spit with rain at this point and the cloud cover suggested to us that it was about to get much worse so we headed back down the decking of the pier in search of shelter. That shelter turned out to be the Bournemouth Oceanarium and you can follow that link for pictures of its aquatic and reptilian inhabitants.

Apart from this seafront walk in chilly, blustery conditions and the wander through the aquarium we didn’t get up to much else for this short trip to Bournemouth. Pubs and a meal at an Italian restaurant typically make up any seaside resort trip for us and this was no exception. We like Bournemouth mostly for its proximity to Portsmouth and convenience for just getting away from work at short notice but you might prefer that it has one of the UK’s best beaches if you’re a fan of the sun and sea in the summer months or surfing when it’s a bit windier.

The drive from Sidmouth was a bit of an adventure thanks firstly to a signpost pointing in what I said at the time was clearly the wrong direction but, since we didn’t know the roads, we ended up following anyway only to find ourselves stuck in a huge queue on a winding, dipping road for reasons unknown. I eventually took a gamble and picked a lane barely wide enough to allow our car through (they’re popular in that part of the world) and headed off on a mystery trip using my sense of direction to guide us to where we hoped we’d find a main road. I’m writing this now so you know that we didn’t find ourselves impaled on the front of a tractor coming the other way (always a risk) nor did we get waylaid in a village that time had forgotten, mistaken for witches in our mechanical contraption, and burnt at stakes kept in storage for just this sort of eventuality by the superstitious dimwits within (also a risk).

The adventure didn’t end once we reached Weymouth as our trip coincided with a series of roadworks that rendered the planned route to our hotel meaningless as we were sent off down one-way roads that turned us around several times before I could find the beach and hug its shoreline down to where the large car park near our hotel was located. It was difficult to get a hotel with car parking so we’d picked one near the Weymouth Pavilion as there was public parking outside it. This would be perfect, I reckoned, as we’d simply pay for parking and walk the hundred metres or so to the hotel. And indeed, we could have done exactly that had we not discovered that the car park took cash only. And not just any cash; coins. This trip took place in 2020. Pandemic year. It’s the year in which contactless payments became the way to pay for everything. Coins? Who the hell was carrying coins? We certainly weren’t. Thus it was that we checked the map and found a car park with modern means of paying to use it and headed there instead. This ended up being the Swannery Car Park. You can use an app to pay and extend your stay if you need to, and we did. It was great. Except… it was fifteen minutes’ walk from our hotel.

After a few, mostly lovely and warm days in Plymouth the weather had changed a bit and our time in Weymouth saw colder temperatures and a bitter wind so we walked at some pace – lugging our luggage as that’s what you’re supposed to do with it – from the car park to the Cavendish House hotel (not linked at this time as there may be a security issue on the hotel’s website, but bookable through the usual third-party sites), a bed and breakfast establishment in a terrace of similar businesses with views to the beach. We arrived out of breath, climbed the steps to the entrance, rang the bell, donned our masks, and were admitted shortly afterwards where our temperatures were checked with digital, infrared thermometers. Vacationing in the time of Covid.

I’m going to quickly talk about infrared thermometers and about my wife, and this won’t be the last time in these few days in Weymouth that this combination of subjects comes up.

Firstly: digital, infrared thermometers. They are, and there’s no nice way to say this, useless. They use technology ideally suited to picking out hot spots in a large area then make massively wrong assumptions about what this means when pointed at the forehead of a human. Yes, you’ve got a reading that tells you how much of a specific wavelength of light is being reflected from a surface but what does that mean? Have you made allowances for ambient temperature and its effects? Have you accounted for how cosmetics can alter what’s reflected or absorbed? Do you have a clue what the normal emitted temperature range of the person you’re aiming that sensor at should be? All digital thermometers do in this age of pandemic is create a means to embarrass people, to put them through steps not needed to prove they’re not plague-carriers, to be cast under suspicion, and they give a false sense of security to people who think no heat spike means you can’t possibly be contagious. As one factor in a large set of checks they can help but they’re not being used that way by Average Joe who’s running a hairdressing salon or small hotel.

Secondly: my wife. She has a very poor ability to regulate her body heat. Minor exertions can send her core temperature rocketing. When we regularly do hikes on our world travels that neither of us are remotely fit enough to attempt anyway it’s with the certain knowledge that one of us is going to be scarlet and will be attracting comments along the lines of “Holy crap! Are you having a heart attack!? Should we call for a helicopter evac?” constantly from anyone who glances our way.

Scanning our foreheads at the hotel in Weymouth we were acutely aware that I was a little puffed but that my wife was glowing from the quick walk along the seafront and clamber up the steps with bags while wearing masks. A failed reading and we’d have to head home. It was therefore quite a surprise to see that I registered at the bottom end of normal human temperature and my wife was 0.2 degrees Celsius above what’s considered hypothermia. The hotel owner looked wide-eyed at the reading, shrugged, said “Well, you definitely don’t have a temperature, I suppose”, noted it down for the record, and we were given the key to our room.

As mentioned, the Cavendish was a B&B and not the sort of place we normally stay at when we travel around the UK. I know that it’s nice to support independent business-owners (especially since the Conservative government in this country couldn’t give a fuck about them) and that smaller hotels can have a charm that’s not found in bigger establishments, but as introverts we like a more familiar and faceless experience; a perfunctory check-in; no surprises in the hotel room; spacious dining for breakfast you can be invisible in; options for evening dining or drinking on-site. There was nothing wrong with the Cavendish if you’re used to staying in these sorts of hotels in old buildings. The room was small to put it mildly but it’s just a room. The shower water pressure was pretty dreadful but we’ve experienced worse. Breakfast was perfectly fine and the hosts were perfectly pleasant. The main reason for choosing it during our Weymouth stay was simply that I quite fancied a view of the beach from the window.

I had hoped that we might be able to see some of the cruise ships anchoring off Weymouth from our room – victims of the global travel situation – and, indeed, we could. Just about. Leaning out and looking past the pavilion building and car park I’d wanted to use we could spot a few of the vessels.

It was late afternoon so we took a quick walk to get our bearings ahead of a full day exploring Weymouth to come. We started off by making our way towards the harbour entrance piers just beyond the pavilion to take a better look at the ships but the biting wind coming off the sea swiftly sent us scurrying back along the beach towards the town area.

Not far from our hotel there was a small funfair set back from the beach. It looked unwelcoming and foreboding under the overcast sky which is just how we like funfairs to feel. We wouldn’t end up visiting it during our stay in the town but it looked like it has all the creepy elements that make these places appealing and exciting. Is that game rigged? Are those targets glued down? Are these prizes toxic? Has my child been abducted? Such a thrill!

On the beach promenade we saw a sand sculpture shielded from the elements and from oiks who might want to target it for re-sculpting. A sign nearby indicated that more sculptures could be seen at a place called Sandworld elsewhere in Weymouth and we made a note to check this out later in the stay.

The beach gave us one nice view of all seven cruise ships in Weymouth Bay before the cold drove us away from the exposed location. You’ll be able to see two Cunard ships (we haven’t cruised with them yet), three Marella ships (including Discovery that we were on in 2019), and two P&O ships in the photo below (the bigger one unmistakably being Britannia that we should have cruised on earlier in the year). Bloody virus.

We were freezing by this time so looked to the option of trying to get something to eat indoors. Our experience in Plymouth during this pandemic had prepared us for the fact that this might not be easy but the first place we checked out, the Gloucester, while unable to accommodate us indoors did have outdoors seating set down from the road level and therefore protected from the wind, if not the attention of incredibly noisy seagulls. We ate, downed a drink, and took a look at what else was around a road or two back from the sea. This visit to the West Country took place after the relaxing of the first lockdown restrictions so shops had been permitted to open with precautions in place but by this time of the evening they’d all now shut so Weymouth was like a ghost town and it didn’t take a lot of convincing to persuade us to seek some comfort inside another residence run by the purveyor of alcohol beverages. That place was the House of Sounds. Music was playing, there was plenty of music-related decor to cast eyes over, and there looked to be sensible one-way directions and markings around the bar area to ensure proper social distancing was observed. Not that anyone really was following them other than us from our time there. In fact, one couple came in after us and the bloke pulled his wife roughly away from following the one-way route to drag her and stride across the shortest distance to the bar instead. People are just awful, but you know that already. Despite it not seeming to be the friendliest of places with not the most pleasant of patrons it was keeping us out of the wind so we decided to stay for a few more before calling it a night.

We concluded our first evening in Weymouth with a quick wander down to the harbour area and along Custom House Quay on a scenic route back to the hotel, relying on the alcohol inside us to protect us from the worst ravages of the temperature. In the next post in this travelogue series I’ll cover our exploration of some of Weymouth’s historic buildings; expect a fort, a castle, and a museum to feature, plus the discovery of two very good drinking establishments.

Despite not wanting to be out on Portland in inclement weather conditions we don’t generally have a problem with a little rain so we decided we’d give our legs some exercise and take in a little of the South West Coast Path, England’s longest national trail which just so happens to run through the town in which we were staying. South of our hotel and the town harbour it runs around the Nothe Peninsula and alongside Newton’s Cove and Portland Harbour. We spotted a castle marked on the map and set that as our walking destination, expecting plenty of views out to sea and plenty of cruise ships to spot from afar.

From the hotel we headed across the road to the beach and out onto the Weymouth Pier area around the Pavilion, north of the harbour entrance. We’d been able to see seven ships anchored in the bay the night before but one of the P&O vessels was notable by its absence this morning.

To get to the southern side of the harbour entrance involved a short walk along the water’s edge and across the bascule bridge that lifts periodically to allow vessels to pass in and out of the River Wey. The harbour area of Weymouth was very picturesque with buildings dating from around the seventeenth century forming the general backdrop to a variety of fishing and tourist boats. Incidentally, we did look at seeing if any of the boats were taking passengers out to see the cruise ships up close and they were but they were all booked up when we arrived. Plenty of us cruise-loving weirdos around.

The first place we planned to visit was just beyond the harbour area. Weymouth Museum was located in Brewers Quay, a very attractive building and not just because it used to be a brewery. Built near the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, the building has passed through many hands, and since it stopped making beer (boo) has housed shopping areas and dining establishments and an art gallery but nowadays is mostly vacant and will likely end up as fancy housing most people can’t afford because isn’t that what all lovely buildings eventually end up as?

Weymouth Museum was closed. This was something I’d have known if I’d read my phone correctly when I’d spotted it on the map, but we would end up visiting it on the following day which you’ll be able to read about in the next post in this travelogue series.

So… This castle and fort you want to see too… They are actually open, aren’t they?

Taking my wife’s implied “If you make me walk for ages in this weather and these things are closed I will push you from the nearest cliff” to heart I double-checked that the two other places we’d been planning to visit were really open – they were – and headed for the one farthest away first with a route that took us directly to Newton’s Cove.

Newton’s Cove is the sheltered area of water between the Nothe Peninsula and Portland Harbour, the largest man-made harbour in the world when construction was completed in 1872. Our map view hadn’t given us any reason to suspect we wouldn’t be able to walk along the northernmost of the breakwaters – the Bincleaves Groyne – that form the harbour but this wasn’t the case so we had to make do with some cruise ship-spotting from the mainland. The low cloud, blustery wind, and damp conditions in the air didn’t make for the best photography experiences, sadly.

The walking trail climbed at this point towards Bincleaves Green, an open and elevated space with views that would be particularly lovely on sunnier days but were still pleasant enough on this one.

Prominent on the green was a monument to Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, MP for Weymouth in the early nineteenth century. Fowell Buxton was a very important though lesser-known figure in abolitionism, taking over from William Wilberforce‘s lead role in that respect in Parliament and bringing to fruition the movement that had arisen to end the slave trade initially, then free the slaves. For this reason he has memorials, plaques, busts, and monuments in numerous locations around the UK, and on the five pound note featuring Elizabeth Fry, thanks to his friendship with her and his work on prison reform too, he is the leftmost man wearing glasses in the depiction of Fry reading to Newgate prisoners. I suspect that the best that the current crop of self-serving politicians in Parliament can hope for from the future will be decent likenesses among the effigies constructed and burnt during their monthly name-cursing ceremonies.

The South West Coast Path conjured up in its name a path by the coast and, while we could see that it transformed into roads for the next stretch of walking, these too, with their names Redcliff View and Belle Vue Road, led us to believe that following this national trail would be one of attractive sea vistas en route to the castle that was our destination. Well, I think you can probably guess what I’m leading up to here. It’s entirely likely that houses along the coastal side of those roads do indeed have stunning seascapes onto which their owners can gaze but for someone traipsing along the street there is but a single glimpse of water to be had in a metre-wide gap down the side of one building. We entertained ourselves along this part of the walk by coming up with new names for it, such as The South West Nothing But Houses Trail and The Brick-Lined Route Of The Imagination and, our favourite, It’s A Road.

We eventually came upon the first of the two historical Weymouth sites we planned to visit this day and initial views of the garden area in front of Sandsfoot Castle were very pleasantly surprising indeed; the explosion of colour in the flowers and the tropical feel of the palm trees on such a grey day seemed wonderfully out of place and character for the walk thus far. These gardens were originally planted in 1951 following closure of the castle to the public on safety grounds in the wake of the collapse of what had been the fortification’s gun platform.

As you can tell from the photos below, Sandsfoot Castle is not large. It is a sixteenth-century blockhouse, a single building built for defensive purposes during the reign of Henry VIII, and was in use until after the Civil War. Local people then started to remove parts of the structure for building work in the area and Sandsfoot Castle became a ruin then, thanks to the easily-eroded clay cliffs on which it was constructed, a danger to the public. The twenty-first century saw repairs made to the foundations and the addition of a raised walkway on which to view the castle in a safe manner and that is what you can see today.

We weren’t the only people braving the fine drizzle of the day to read the information boards and take a look inside a piece of history on the Dorset coast this morning, and special mention must be made of the woman in the centre of the photo below who walked in, walked straight to the viewing spot and location of an information board you can see, and proceeded to stand there and look out to sea with a coffee in her hand for close to ten minutes while the rest of us waited patiently for her to move on. Us all being sensible people who sensibly were maintaining social distancing, along with us all being British people and unfailingly reserved, nobody deigned to get close to her and shout something like “Oi! A little consideration for the rest of the visitors getting rained on out here!?” Obviously we wanted to do that but the law of the land dictates we must tut and shake our heads at one another instead and that’s precisely what we did.

As we left Sandsfoot Castle we spotted a sign for the Rodwell Trail which sounded more enticing than retracing our steps back towards town on the inappropriately-named South West Coast Path. The Rodwell Trail was very pleasant, mostly flat, and shielded from the worst of the elements by trees and bushes, and follows along the route of what was a railway line in the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century. Indeed, you can see remnants of the old railway line as you walk along, something that shows how quickly nature can restore the impacts of humans if allowed to do so. This trail is also purportedly home to a variety of wildlife with boards positioned along its length indicating the nearby presence of bats or butterflies or lizards; we never saw any, though.

To Nothe Fort, then. With the increasingly more important naval use of nearby Portland Harbour in the latter half of the nineteenth century it was considered necessary to build defences and Nothe Fort was the result. Despite this, it never really saw any action with the only real excitement being the firing of its rampart guns as a warning to unidentified vessels approaching during World War II that subsequently turned out to be refugees. In the 1950s Nothe Fort was effectively abandoned, sold to the council, went through a period of neglect, almost got turned into a hotel, housed civil administration nuclear shelter facilities, but eventually underwent a bit of restoration and transformation into the museum it is today.

Entering Nothe Fort puts you in the centre of a D-shaped space with the curved ramparts facing out to sea and sporting a few guns. Disabled access was very good at the fort with ramped areas and elevators. Wide-ranging views can be had and if it hadn’t been quite so exposed to freezing gusts we might have spent more time enjoying them. Of course we gazed out at the cruise ships again but we are a smidge obsessed in that respect. Not as bad as some people I could mention, mind.

The main space of the ground level of the fort felt underused to us with just a few items of interest such as an air raid shelter. Beneath the ramparts there were some rooms with displays but at this point exploring the fort we felt it was okay but nothing special.

However, there is a lower level to the fort running under the walls of it with rooms to either side and this was far more interesting. It was also far less cold and that was a real bonus on this visit. Models, maps, photos, and information posters filled many of the rooms and it would be easy to spend hours exploring this part of Nothe Fort if military history and the history of Weymouth were things that fascinated you. I personally loved the Cold War civil defence room reconstructions because the sight of a BBC computer and 5.25 inch floppy disks makes my nerd neurons fire.

Nothe Fort is certainly worth a visit if you’re passing through or staying in Weymouth but, of course, the really important question is: How do you pronounce Nothe?

Here we are then at… Nothee?.. Fort.

Is that the pronunciation you’re going with?

What do you think? Not He?

That doesn’t make any sense. “This fort: what’s his name?” “Ooh, fort not a man. Not he.”

It’s like the word “another” with missing start and end letters. ‘Nuther. “What’s this fort’s name? Don’t ask me, mate. It’s just ‘nuther fort as far I’m concerned.”

Knowth. As in “Oh yes, I knowth this fort very well. Difficult to pronounce, it is.”

Anyway, you’ll be pleased to know that one of those pronunciations is in fact correct.

Sandsfoot Castle, Nothe Fort, Rodwell Trail, and a short trek along the least interesting part of the South West Coast Path (I hope) satisfied our urge to explore some of Weymouth so the remainder of the day would be more relaxed. And yes, that is a euphemism for “mostly spent in the pub”. We started off by heading back towards the picturesque harbour area in order to cross back over the bridge to the main part of town.

First of the Weymouth pubs was the Rendezvous & Royal Oak on the harbour’s edge and with a lovely view of the bascule bridge that we got to see raise and lower while we had a drink. Drinks were ordered via an app and social distancing was observed well. Incidentally, the drinks you see below aren’t ours. They were delivered to our table, we thanked the member of staff, we poured the cider out, I took the photo, and then we realised we hadn’t ordered them. A small mix-up as a nearby table had ordered similar drinks to us. Seemed like a pretty nice pub and the staff were very friendly but we only stayed for one.

The two other pubs we discovered were so good – and very different from one another – that we would hit both of them on the following day in Weymouth too. First up, and only because my wife spotted a sandwich board in the high street indicating it was one street over, was the Doghouse Micropub. We adore micropubs and this one was lovely; one long room with seating at one end and a bar the other, plus the all-important wide range of craft ales and ciders to taste-test. As the name suggests and as one of the photos below confirms this is also a dog-friendly pub, and we saw several people turn up for drinks with their four-legged friends in attendance. We were also very impressed with the toiletries in the pub loo which included deodorant and feminine hygiene products to use freely. Definitely hit this place up if you like craft ales, dogs, or craft ales and dogs.

Because we fancied something a little more substantial than pub snacks to eat we then went in search of somewhere that would do some food along with more drinks. We knew that this wouldn’t be easy with a lot of places requiring advance bookings because of The Times In Which We Live (in fact, we made sure to book a table for a meal for the following night because of this) but we took a chance on the Nautico Lounge when we saw its website saying people could just turn up and be seated. This turned out to be a great discovery. A QR code on the table allowed for easy access to a website to order food and drink (no app download required) and panels were positioned between the well-spaced-out tables to enforce distancing. The pub itself was very attractive with a great range of food and drink on offer. We do like a cocktail (it’s a side-effect of all those cruises coupled with borderline alcoholism) and we were very happy with the available choices.

In the next post in this West Country travelogue series I’ll cover our final day in Weymouth which will see a return to some pubs, an evening meal in a restaurant on the beach, and, ahead of all that, visits to the town museum, the aquarium, plus a look at a whole lot of sand sculptures.

The view from our hotel window right on the seafront was very nice first thing in the morning. Mostly blue skies, calm-looking water, people out taking their dogs for walks along the promenade and across the sand; but the wind was pretty strong and cold and we knew that the forecast was for the conditions to change quite significantly.

Breakfast done, hoodies on, we headed off northwards along Weymouth beach, one eye on the increasing cloud cover and another always looking for something to take a photo of. I was in full Marty Feldman mode. One of the first things to catch our attention was a crow trying to extract the inhabitant of a shell from its protective layer. It was doing that bird thing where they pick the shell up, flap into the air, then drop it to crack it open, only it wasn’t flying high enough and the shell was resolutely remaining intact. We offered some words of encouragement and tried to instruct the bird that it needed more altitude but our efforts were in vain as it transpired that the corvid didn’t understand English. Ridiculous. Coming over here to our beaches and not even speaking the language. Confident, however, that it would learn – they are fabulously smart after all – and aware that we were getting odd stares from people out and about that conveyed a mix of confusion and suspicion at our gesturing and talking to a bird on a beach, we pressed on.

It’s practically impossible to walk along the seafront at Weymouth and not be struck by the sight of the Jubilee Clock Tower. This is on account of it being revoltingly ugly. Standing on a base of Portland Stone and constructed from wrought iron in 1888 to commemorate Queen Victoria‘s Golden Jubilee the bold colour scheme was applied in the 1920s during the terrible taste famine that blighted the south coast of England.

From something garish (but still lovely in its own way) to something undeniably beautiful next with the sight of the Pier Bandstand right on the water’s edge. Observant people and possibly even you might have already realised that what’s pictured clearly isn’t a pier and clearly isn’t a bandstand but nobody ever questions why we still refer to people in parliament as politicians when diabolically duplicitous detritus is what they all are so here we are. In fact, as you’ve probably guessed, this structure used to extend out to sea and on that pier there was a bandstand but neither now remain. The pier was constructed just ahead of the outbreak of war in the late 1930s and incorporates Art Deco design like many similar seaside attractions around the UK’s coast but with some early modernist construction techniques. Sadly, those techniques weren’t robust enough to withstand nature and the test of time. In its heyday Weymouth’s pier hosted dances, concerts, wrestling, roller skating, and Miss Weymouth contests but following the decision to demolish the pier the remainder of the building that stands today is home to an amusement arcade and an Italian restaurant. We would be visiting it later in the day.

The sand of the beach farther south had given way to shingle at this point but it was no less an attractive, typically traditional, British seaside to walk along, or be blown along as was the case for us. Buildings along the shoreline had all the elements of Victorian and Edwardian resorts you’d expect to see on vintage postcards.

We knew we’d reached the point along the beach at which we’d need to turn inland once we hit the stone jetty. Rather than being protection for the shore this stone outcrop actually protects an outlet of water that runs under the beach and nearby roads. I used the spot to snap a few photos of some of the cruise ships anchored in Weymouth Bay – you know me and my love of cruise ships – but the promised rain was clearly getting extremely close now and the darkening clouds rolling in looked ominous against the bright colours of the seafront chalets.

Our first stop of the day was at SEA LIFE Weymouth to give it its apparently official name, but I’ll be slipping and referring to it as “the Sea Life Centre” on occasion (or even just Sealife Centre) throughout picture captions and in this account of our day simply because I have an aversion to putting things in all capitals for no obvious reason and, to me, all aquariums are Sea Life Centres as the first one we ever visited in Portsmouth was named that so the name’s stuck. Incidentally, the one in Portsmouth is now called Blue Reef but we still call it the Sea Life Centre much to the annoyance of the manager when I mentioned it to him several years ago.

Getting into the town’s aquarium was entertaining. We’d needed to pre-book tickets and an arrival time and we turned up just as that slot – and indeed the aquarium itself – opened for the day. There was a small, socially-distanced queue ahead of us and entry to the building could only be done upon a satisfactory temperature test using a digital infrared thermometer. I’ve talked about infrared thermometers and our quite surprising experience with them where my wife’s concerned on our arrival in Weymouth (have a quick read of the opening paragraphs of our First Evening in Weymouth to get up to speed there) but the short recap of that is that they’re useless, people don’t know how to use them, and they have big problems with my wife.

Well…

The young man with the thermometer was standing in place, pointing his gun at people’s heads, glancing at it, nodding, then allowing people to shuffle forward. It was slow-going because the timed, pre-booked ticket system still seemed to involve an awful lot of faffing inside the building but it was gradually progressing and while the rain had finally arrived on the scene it was thankfully little more than a misty drizzle at this point. It was our turn.

The gun was pointed at my head. The trigger was depressed. The man glanced down, nodded, then turned to my wife.

The gun was pointed at her head. The trigger was depressed. The man glanced down, frowned, then tried again. Then again. Then from closer. Then from a little bit back. Then pointed it at her wrist. Then tried again on her forehead. He tried it on me again and it apparently worked fine. Back to my wife. The trigger was depressed. The bottom of the thermometer suddenly opened up and the batteries ejected onto the ground. The batteries were retrieved, rubbed together for luck, reinserted, and the thermometer was tried again. Nothing on my wife.

“I’m just going to assume you’re okay,” he said nervously, looking at us and the queue behind us that was growing with every second in the strengthening rain.

And that’s the story of how we discovered my wife has a built-in infrared thermometer electronic warfare system.

As you can almost see from the map of Sea Life Weymouth above the exhibits at the attraction are set in zones of interest and on our visit, because of all the Covid precautions in place, there was a one-way system in operation. That system couldn’t be entirely followed because some of the spots double-backed on themselves and we ended up looping around on a couple of occasions anyway in order to escape a particularly noisy section occupied by screaming or shouting kids in the hope that a second wander through might be more peaceful. The enclosed spaces with hard walls and glass surfaces do amazing things with echos of children’s lungs, but not good amazing things.

The star of the Sea Life Centre for us was the octopus. It’s no secret that we’re drawn to intelligence – it’s why we’re together and why we despise most of humanity, after all – and you don’t even have to read all the accounts of these fantastic creatures working with tools or escaping their tanks to sense the thinking going on beyond those fascinating eyes.

Seeing a fish swimming upside down immediately made me think that either something was wrong with it or with Earth’s gravitational pull localised to that tank in the aquarium. A quick discussion with my wife as to which was more likely concluded it probably was the fish after all which was disappointing from a major physics discovery perspective. As it turned out, neither was correct, which just goes to show why arguments of the type Is It X Or Is It Y? are inherently flawed. Lionfish have strong control over their swim bladder and swimming upside down is perfectly normal behaviour for them. I mean, it’s still a bit weird and freaks out the other fish, but it is at least normal.

Hey, Ted, are you upside down or am I?

It’s me, Jim, don’t panic. Just floating on my back for a bit, looking at the world in a strange, new way.

Phew! Thought there might be a local problem with the gravitational vector strong enough to offset the effects of the fundamental interactive forces of nature for a second.

Nope. Just thinking about how if the surface of the water was really the ground.

Are you on something?

Sure am, Jim. High as a freaking kite.

Weymouth Sea Life Centre has not one but two species of penguin to gaze at (ideally with clothes pegs on your nose). The first of those is the Humboldt Penguin, a vulnerable species indigenous to northern Chile and Peru. A far-less-threatened species and therefore far-less-likely-to-be-seen species of penguin – at least outside its natural habitat – is the Fairy Penguin which is stupidly cute, but since it can typically be found in Australia is quite likely venomous or something. Quite why they were in Weymouth wasn’t clear but never rule out a lack of bar work during lockdown meaning they needed something else to do.

A couple of unusual attractions next. The Night and Day Experience recreates a coral reef across a full day cycle, incorporates some interactive elements, includes sea turtles (which my wife adores), and was mostly too dark to take any decent photos in. Other visitors’ children seemed to very much enjoy this area judging by the noise. Outside there was a Wetlands area (all the areas outside were wet by this time, but this was designed that way) which is there to encourage local species into the park. The pond and bushes should attract bees, birds, and butterflies, while the rusting car might persuade James May to nest.

Aquatic mammals were the next creatures to win our attention. We braved the spitty rain to stand and watch both seals and otters in their environments, the latter getting quite excited when they caught a glimpse of one of the employees at the Sea Life Centre, an indication that it may have been nearly time for food. It was interesting to observe that the seals seemed to be evolution saying “Let’s take a dog and put it in the water” while the otters were the result of a similar experiment with cats, yet in each case they behaved in the opposite manner to their land-based cousins with the laid-back attitude of the sea dogs and the irritatingly excitable attitude of the sea cats feeling completely wrong.

We almost left the aquarium at this point as it looked like the only zone we’d not explored – Castaway Bay; a splash zone for youngsters – didn’t have anything we’d want to see, but in the interests of completeness we decided at the last second to take a quick nose around it which was handy as that’s where we discovered the Rainforest area. There was a queue to get in because social distance markings were being observed by visitors but the narrowness of the entrance and the need of some people to stare at tanks for sometimes minutes at a time or to yell at little Bobby to get back and come look at the seaweed created a bottleneck. We waited patiently. Most people waited patiently. Some people barged through to see what the hold-up was and were duly and rightly beaten about the heads with sticks and told not to crowd or jump the queue. Or stared and tutted at. One of the two. I forget which.

For me, the stars of this final set of aquarium tanks to pass by were:

• Unicorn fish – Clearly the inspiration for a lot of psychedelic cartoon characters from the 1960s.
• Four-eyed fish – The unicorn fish may have had the nose but these are the nosy ones, ensuring they don’t miss any action above or below the surface of the water with their split eyes that can see in both air and water.
• Poison dart frogs – You have to love thinking about the microscopic evolutionary steps that led to this species of frog promoting the genes for “Screw this, I’m fabulous and I want people to see me!”

That brought our visit to Weymouth’s Sea Life Centre to an end. It was very good. This was the second aquarium we’d visited in a few days and if I had to compare then I’d say that Plymouth’s National Marine Aquarium was better for adults and older children with an eye towards education while Weymouth was far better for families and younger children in general. On a bright day and hopefully one devoid of global viruses running rampant it would be a great place to spend many hours.

This wasn’t a bright day. This was decidedly wet now. In fact, as we left the park the heavens really opened up. Luckily, SandWorld could barely be any closer to the aquarium so we were in and under shelter very quickly. This was very switfly a place we realised would likely also be quite lovely with good weather but it’s hard to get away from the fact that during our time there the general feeling was of something quite grim. The lack of colour probably had an impact. The sound of the rain tipping down onto the plastic overhead or the somewhat terrifying sound as the wind slammed into the sheeting or bent a nearby tree overhead to scratch along the roof also didn’t help. When you read those tales every Christmas of the people who visit local Winter Wonderland World attractions just so they can be quoted in newspapers saying “Our kids were expecting reindeers and igloos, not a shipping container with a bag of half-melted ice cubes suspended on string from the ceiling!” then there was just the merest hint of that about this place. Nature played a part, definitely, but the organisers could certainly look into making the site more appealing in these conditions.

There’s no disputing the quality of the artwork and intricacy in the details in making the sand sculptures, though, and many of the artists were working on them as we visited. With some families around it might have been nice if there was some indication of interaction or a look-up on occasion with a smile but since I own three t-shirts with variations of the phrase “Grumpy Bastard” on them and my wife invented the resting bitch face we really can’t comment too strongly on this. There were also some areas to play in the sand for kids and a shop selling anything even remotely sandy so since we didn’t catch it in its best light (I hope) I’d recommend it as worth a visit, especially if you’re planning on hitting the aquarium anyway.

That concluded the two main things we’d wanted to see on this day in Weymouth to an end but we still wanted to hit the museum that we’d failed to account for not being open the day before. That meant a trek all the way back along the beach – with a ten-minute shelter in some public gardens when the driving rain forced us and a couple of other people scurrying to limit just how drenched we were all getting – and since it was early afternoon we also took a minor detour to one of the bars we’d visited before, the Nautico Lounge, to grab a bite to eat and a drink. The museum is on the south side of the harbour and we timed our subsequent walk to it to perfection and got to see Weymouth’s bascule bridge opening to let some boats in and out.

Weymouth Museum is not big. It’s probably one of the smallest museums we’ve ever visited, but this is reflected in its low entry fee. Don’t miss it if you’re visiting the town, however, because some of the stuff there is great, and the wartime exhibits in particular were fabulous. My absolute favourite: there was a transcription on the walls from a 1978 edition of the Dorset Evening Echo of the account of Lieutenant John Hoare accepting the surrender of a German U-Boat in 1945 and escorting it back to Portland which, if it’s still there when you visit, I insist you read. It’s an incredible account that really brings home the human side of war as the two sides exchanged stories and photos of loved ones on the submarine heading towards Dorset; respect; camaraderie of people in similar professions just doing their job; then despair at the treatment of the Germans on land by superiors wanting photo opportunities and obstinate Americans wanting to throw their weight around.

All this fraternisation may appear reprehensible. Judging by the home papers there is a hysteria or hatred about – a desirable thing maybe in war, but I cannot say I like it now we have won.

The horrors of the concentration camps were unbelievable. But I refuse to hold all Germans responsible for such crimes. I would stake my life that the Germans I have met could not, and would not, be devils incarnate.

That certainly added a sombre mood to proceedings even if it was thoroughly interesting but it did at least mark the end of the cultural aspects to the day. For the remainder we’d be indulging in what we do best thanks to excessive practice: eating and drinking.

Our plan was to first have a couple of drinks in the Doghouse Micropub that we’d discovered the previous day and which was our sort of place. And that’s exactly what we did. We then planned to freshen up back at the hotel, have a bit of a rest, then head off for our meal once the time was right. And that’s exactly what we didn’t because some people came in the pub who we then started chatting to. So we had to stay for some more drinks. Quite a few more. We’re easily swayed by good conversation in close reach of alcohol. In fact it reached that point where I suddenly realised we had twenty minutes to get to the restaurant and we had to down our glasses quickly and say our goodbyes.

As you’ve previously read if you’ve not skimmed past, Al Molo was on the beach in Weymouth in the former Pier Bandstand building. We arrived dead on time for our sitting and proceeded to enjoy some pleasant views of the sea in a really lovely location ahead of a very enjoyable meal served by an extremely friendly waitress. I can’t quite remember what we ate but you might be able to work it out from the photos. I do know that we didn’t stop drinking but that’s what happens when you give us the opportunity to do so. At the end of the meal we had for a brief moment wine to finish, a cocktail each that we’d ordered, and a shot each of limoncello (for that’s the law in Italian eateries) all on the table. I’m not complaining.

Al Molo gets the thumbs up from us if you like some fine dining and you’re in Weymouth.

This was our last night in Weymouth and we spent the final twenty minutes outside in it walking back along the promenade to our hotel. It was still raining, as you can tell. On the next and last day of our West Country break to come we would spend an evening in Southampton to meet up with some travel blogging friends for a meal and ahead of that we would pay a visit to Beaulieu Motor Museum, a reasonably regular haunt for us not too far from home. That will be covered in the concluding post in this travelogue series.